Week 6
Journal Text Book 365:1#2 Log: 71
Chapter XVI: Strange Entities
Case File 16
It has long been recorded now, that the presence of paranormal activity is a realistic assumption in today's society. When you consider the pop-culture of horror films, it would not be too much to believe that these characters must have some inspiration. And fact is surely stranger than the fiction. Take the findings of Younge and Delpha (2005: Younge/Delpha Paranormal Findings of Autumn, mentioned in the previous three case studies), and you cannot help but assume most things deemed ridiculous are in fact perfectly plausible. Disregard such evidence at your own peril, would be the general consensus.
And so we come to the next case. That of _______ House, also generally known in the local area as ______, _________ and ________.
The house was built in 17__ and was owned by the Holt family. They were a prestigious, wealthy stock, with much influence and power. Over the years however, the family wealth and status declined. It is not known why. But the Holts would rise and fall once more. And the second fall would be the hardest landing. It was rumoured that the reason for the fall from grace was as a direct result of the practices carried out to restore it to its health.
The occult.
It is reported in several other journals and essays, that ______ House became a troubled place somewhere around 17__. The heir at the time Sir Reginald Holt, son of the House creator, Sir Tallis Holt, allowed his mistress, one Marie La Chere, a fair girl of Southern roots, to perform rituals. These practices were intended to make the family a fortune and they succeeded, via the arrival of a mysterious woman.
The woman arrived in the small town of ______, and she walked two days to _____ House, barefoot, in the snow, her feet cut and bleeding, her dress torn at the breast, hair falling wildly around slim, bare shoulders. Sir Reginald instantly fell into an intense whirlpool of lust upon seeing the beauty stood on the floor of his magnificent hallway. The servant girl who had opened the door to the stranger's knock, and who would later play witness to many ungodly events at _____ House, was said to have believed her master succumbed to a 'witch's curse' and that he, and his soul were 'forever damned.'
The woman stayed. And Sir Reginald lived how he had always done, with his previous witchy mistress, Marie, his sickly wife and the Mysterious Woman (as we shall for this text refer to her) - and later eight children.
There is no record of information for the Mysterious Woman. But she stayed with the Holts for the remainder of Sir Reginald's sixty five years, as if bound to him. His wife, Lady Emilia Holt, has never been thought to complain about the Mysterious Woman's presence in her home. She was, we understand, well acquainted with her husband's appetites and assumed the woman to be one of his desserts.
However, local rumour would have it another way. It was said that the Mysterious Woman was a demon. She lived with the Holts because her presence answered the request of Marie; to make the family wealthy, powerful, popular, again. And this worked. In their mid forties when the Mysterious Woman appeared, the Holts had been barren. Yet strangely, Lady Holt became pregnant within days of the Mysterious Woman's arrival and she would bear another seven children. Some say the demon woman's powers stretched to making seemingly infertile women fertile. Some questioned the means by which this was achieved. Notations from Crynos's 1965 booklet on local demonic activity in the _____ area suggests that some demons can change their sexual organs at will. Perhaps the Mysterious Woman was not the lover of Sir Reginald...
A year following Sir Reginald's death and the Holt luck changed completely. The Mysterious Woman left the night the Lord died, and within the next five years, several unexplainable things would happen.
The heir would not take his inheritance, preferring, it would seem, to allow his third brother to take the title. We do not know why the second and first brothers were passed over. But it was the fourth son, Peter Holt, who would inherit the family fortune.
Lady Emilia died mysteriously one night around six months after her husband. We do not know why her death was mysterious, only that it was because her daughter, Kerensa, recorded it as so in her diaries (something we will touch on more in a moment). The servants of Lady Emilia remained or fled. The servant, Mary Lee, who had first allowed the stranger entrance all those years ago, remained.
The mistress of Sir Reginald died also, after falling from her horse. Some suspected foul play in the matter as she was an excellent horse woman - and sixty five stab wounds are not generally sustained from a fall.
The next peculiar occurrence was the almost overnight poverty that came to the family. One moment they were still enjoying their wealth. The next they were rationing their food to those who needed it: servant's meals we no longer provided.
With the economic crisis so came a social one. Society shunned the Holt offspring and proposals were recanted, engagements called off, wedding preparations ceased. The family, four boys and four girls, turned into themselves, creating a peculiar little world of their own. One, some say, that involved incest...
In 18__, the Holts took in a guest, Jeremiah London. Friend of the second son, Eboni Holt, Jeremiah stayed as a favour to Eboni, who was seemingly concerned about something to do with his family. Eboni, known for his practical jokes and sordid sense of humour, often played tricks on Jeremiah. But what London swears to have gone through could not have been the conjuring of Eboni nor his siblings.
Jeremiah, according to the introduction of L.P. Price's book, Tattle-Tale Heart (Kale & Langley, 1990) awoke one night to strange sounds coming from outside of his window. Keen to go back to sleep, Jeremiah investigated, flinging open the heavy curtains on the third floor and looking out of the large window. He faced the frosty front lawn of the property and apparently saw nothing to begin with. But he then noticed something that forced him back into his bed and which sent him away from _____ House, never to return nor contact his oldest friend again.
But we do not know what it was. Jeremiah never spoke of it again until he mentioned it to his youngest grandchild upon his deathbed. He refused to confide what had frightened him so, but warned his grandson to believe in good and evil and to always stay close to the side of God. The diaries of Kerensa Holt further provide proof of the incident. On the eleventh of May, 18__ she wrote:
Master London left us before breakfast this morning. He gave no reasoning to me nor my siblings, but he did impart something to Eboni I believe, as there was shouting and quarreling coming from father's study. I went to Mary after he took his leave but she knew nothing more than I and scuttled away to her work.
He kissed my hand as he made his goodbyes and I fancy that his eyes lingered on me longer than my sisters... But he has made no promise and I fear now that I may never see him again...
Jeremiah London was not the only one to leave _____ House. Two years after the death of Sir Reginald, four servants handed in their notice, fearing their home and jobs. Local tavern gossip would be printed in a cheap one-shot newspaper in 18__ that retold the frightened stories of the servants and their life at _____ House. Sadly, all of those primary sources are now lost to us, only alluded to in the journals of a history university near to _____.
Three years after the death of their father, two of the Holt children died. Ollie, Sir Reginald's third and favourite son, was crushed by his carriage during a storm that hit the grounds of _____ House. Yet the storm was not reported elsewhere. It was however seen over the woods which act as a fence to the Holt property.
The second death was that of the eldest daughter, Odessa, who went to sleep a beautiful, healthy nineteen year old girl. And who was discovered dead in her bed the next morning, ninety five if she was a day. No one could ever explain this impossible death.
Kerensa was particularly distraught by her brother and sister's deaths and in her diaries she wrote:
I hate them. I hate them all. They act as if nothing ever happened, as if Odessa and Ollie were nothing to us. But I mourn them. I miss my Odessa every day. I try not to think of it, to forget the sight of her that morning as she lay in her bed, quiet, small, shriveled and grey, brittle. I don't know what happened to her. But I wish I could forget it. Peter is being particularly odious today...
There are thought to have been more mentions of Kerensa's feelings towards her older brothers and sisters. But many pages of her diaries have been ripped out or cut up, edges still clinging to the hardback spine. The lost pages are thought to have been burnt. Kerensa herself would die two years later.
We assume she died. The truth is that is she disappeared.
So far all I have been able to offer about _____ House is a peculiar woman, hints of the occult but no evidence, odd deaths, possible incest and a young girl's journal and a young man's fright. So where is the ghostly presence you say? Allow me to present to you some more case file evidence.
1976. A young woman disappears on the road running through __________. Tally Spri, twenty one from New Jersey, was driving to visit her boyfriend for the weekend at his campus in Boston. It is thought that she had car trouble and that she took a shortcut through _____. Whatever the truth, Tally was never seen again. But in 1989, renowned Doctor of paranormal activity, Dr Elouisa Brine, went to the road, searching for the spirits of three boys who were known to have disappeared from the Beech Tree road. She had no luck finding them. Witnesses, her assistant Dr Michael McMiel and Detective Robert Twane, logged that Dr Brine was spooked by something, a sign, they say though it is not recorded what the sign said. Dr Brine made them leave quickly. But not before she swears to have seen a young woman in a tan coat holding a black umbrella. This is the only reported sighting of this possible spectre on record in the last thirty years.
No one who has gone missing on _____ ground has ever been seen again. So people have, mostly, stopped going. But there are several disappearances in the last four years which have led to continued suspicion about _____ House.
2009: Five girls, two of them siblings, disappeared. Searches were put into place and a gasoline container was found on the grounds of the property. But no further traces of the girls were found and though the gasoline container was confirmed to be that of the driver (due to her name and several expletives being written on the sides of the container) no further evidence nor clues were found.
In 2010, a young girl wandered off into the woods, abandoning her school group. She was last seen carrying her rucksack into the Beech trees. Her classmate had told his teacher that Mary Lou Lange had made him promise not to raise the alarm. Because she said, 'He wants me to himself.'
Mary Lou, aged five, did not give any information about who 'He' was to her friend.
Before I tell you about the other two disappearances, there is some note worthy information pertaining to ghosts in 1993. Several young people who had broken down on the east side of the Beech Tree Woods decided to camp out and go for help in the morning. They left their car on the road and set up camp on the very edge of the woods.
The campers went to sleep but something woke one of them. Going out to explore, the camper, Eileen Troop, twenty three from Kansas, is on record to having seen a ghost that has left many wondering just what lies beyond the Beech trees. Here is an excerpt from Miss Troop's statement.
- Author's note. The identities of the interviewer and interviewee have been reduced to MT and DSP for the ease of the reader and the typist.
Miss Troop: I heard a noise... Something loud enough that it woke me. To begin with I ignored it, I rolled over and cuddled up to my cousin, Terri, for warmth. I was just falling asleep again when I heard it, this noise, again. And it was much louder this time.
Detective S. Parker: And what was this noise you heard, Miss Troop?
MT: A ... A cry.
DSP: A cry? What, like a cry for help? A person crying?
MT: No, nothing like that. It was a cry of anger. Do try not to look so cynical, Detective, I'm telling you what you want to know.
DSP: Forgive me. Carry on.
MT: I got up and stuck my head out of the tent. The boys were asleep about twenty feet away in their tent. I scanned the area for life but nothing happened. No one was there. But I knew I had heard something.
DSP: So you investigated further?
MT: Yes.
DSP: What did you see?
MT: I ... I saw a man. From over by the trees. He was walking hurriedly, pacing, on some sort of - some sort of mission.
DSP: Mission, Miss Troop?
MT: Mission isn't the right word. Huh, ok. I got out of the tent.
DSP: After you saw him?
MT: No, before. I got out and I went towards the trees. I was scared but I knew that was where the angry sound had come from. I got closer to the edge of the woods and that was when I saw him. This man. He came towards me from inside of the forest. He walked out of the trees, parting the air like Moses parted the Red Sea. His face was set and grim and his hands were clutching those of two beautiful children, a boy and a girl, one on each side of him... He seemed to drag them along.
DSP: Can you describe him to me?
MT: Oh yes. He was tall. About your height, detective. Masculine, with wide shoulders. He took long heavy strides through the wet grass and he wore a white shirt, old fashioned you know, like an Austen hero. It was ripped open to his naval. He wore black tight trousers and cumbersome boots. The children with him were dressed in little black suits and dresses.
DSP: What did the children look like? You told one of my junior officers that they weren't any of the children in our missing persons database.
MT: Detective, I'm very tired. I'd like to see my friends -
DSP: Once we are finished here, Miss Troop.
MT: Huh. No, they were none of the children on that list. Which is ridiculously long, you know.
DSP: Miss Troop, your job is to tell me what happened. Let me worry about mine.
MT: Nothing much did happen. He came out at me through the fog, dragging these serious faced children and then he began to yell at me, telling me to go.
DSP: What were his exact words, Miss Troop?
MT: He said... He shouted at me. He yelled and yelled, getting closer and closer, dragging those poor dead children -
DSP: Dead? You have not mentioned the children to be dead until now.
MT: You wouldn't have believed me.
DSP: Try me.
MT: They were dead. I could tell by the gashes across their little necks...
DSP: Miss Troop... Eileen... What did he say?
MT: He said, Get off! Get off my land! Only death comes to those on my land! Be gone!
No other sighting can be found documented on film or tape about the sighting of this mysterious man. In fact, he is only the second credible sighting we have of a ghost on ____ property. The campers were tested for drug and alcohol abuse and were found to be clean. Thy were also traveling to a three day Bible study group in Ohio when they broke down, so it is generally believed that they spoke the truth.
But Miss Troop's statement does give us something. The man she described is similar in physical appearance to the eldest Holt son, Bran, and the clothing would certainly fit to the correct time period.
Bran Holt's death is not known in detail. Kerensa merely touches upon his death as a 'tragedy that (she cannot bear, that should not be bron by anyone possessive of a human soul.' Kerensa's diaries were posted to her only friend in Boston following her own death. We only now have the remainders of their rumoured twenty two volumes.
We can almost certainly identify Bran as the ghost in the woods. But we do not know for certain why he was angry with the campers nor why he drags two children with him. His reasoning could be simple hatred for strangers, he was known to have a temper. Whatever the ghostly inhabitants of ______ House are doing with their afterlife is lost on us. But we have some evidence to suggest and back up the presence of spectral existence.
There is one last note to be made in this chapter about _____ House. And that is the peculiar and continued mention of Number 9 or No9P throughout the remainder of Kerensa's diaries. Who or what is the meaning behind Number 9? We do not know.
And a final not on the Mysterious Woman. If she were indeed a demon then we can safely assume she was a Cressida. A demon woman summoned only by the most powerful or witches and sorcerers and one sworn to be the lifelong companion of their subject. The woman certainly remained until Sir Reginald's dying day and the Cressida are also known for their abundant fertility and capability to bring life into a desert womb. There is always a price to pay for a Cressida's kindness. And kind they are, they are both the most dangerous but also the most caring of demons. All female, they nurture and love their hosts and give them all they they want. But death is the ultimate price and any children born by the will or womb of a Cressida is believed to be born soulless. Making them inhuman, violent and insane. When we consider the fates of the Holt children, and of the Holt line, indeed the house of _____, it is not too much to assume that they suffered their parent's sins. A broad minded warning to the reader.
Do not go to ______ House.